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The reason GDPR exists is to protect people who do not understand the complicated world of online tracking. If GDPR is effective only when said people are on the front line of defense, than the GDPR has failed.

As a matter of fact, I do complain a lot, and I do file complaints about GDPR violations, but convincing my friends and family to even care about this stuff is science fiction (I've tried for over a decade now without success).

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I dunno. Convincing my friends and family to care about Facebook's potential for abuse was science fiction, right up until it wasn't. Certain recent events in American politics took an issue that was abstract and invisible to the median consumer and made it very concrete and very visible.

Business and engineering culture around website construction is horribly broken with regards to user privacy. Changing that culture is going to take years of consistent pressure which existing interests are going to fight every step of the way.

In my opinion the ugly consent forms are the best thing about GDPR. A problem that techies have known about for years is now visible (and annoying) to the general public. Of course that doesn't restructure the entire internet overnight, but dragging the problem out of the shadows seems like a pretty good opening salvo.

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